


stay with me, hold my hand, there's no need to be brave

by untakenbeepun



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Takes Care of Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Declarations Of Love, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Scars, Tenderness, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Crowley (Good Omens), Wing Scars, vulnerable crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 14:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untakenbeepun/pseuds/untakenbeepun
Summary: On a sunny day in the South Downs, Aziraphale asks about Crowley's fall from grace, and discovers the depth of the damage heaven have done to him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 268





	stay with me, hold my hand, there's no need to be brave

Aziraphale asks the question on a warm summer’s day in the South Downs, while they lounge in the garden soaking in the sun. Aziraphale is splayed across a tartan blanket, still pretty much fully dressed, saved for losing his jacket, and rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows - which is utterly indecent if you ask Crowley.

Crowley himself basks in the warm sunlight in a t-shirt and boxers, star fishing in the grass.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale asks, “do you ever think about the fall?”

Crowley stills in the grass, tilts his head up and stares at Aziraphale, eyes imperceptible behind his dark glasses.

"What's brought this on?" he asks.

Aziraphale twists the ring around his little finger, staring at the ground. "I was just thinking about it. It was on the mind."

"Are you worried that you're going to fall?" Crowley says, "because I'm not going to let them take you, angel. All of heaven would have to go through me. Besides, they can't really make you fall. Not as long as you still truly wish to be an angel."

"I'm not worried about that - well, I _am_ , but I was actually just thinking about your fall." 

Crowley swallows. "My fall?"

"Yes." Aziraphale takes a breath, looking like he'd very much regretted starting this conversation but didn't know how to stop. "It's just. I don't think we ever talked about it."

Crowley stares at Aziraphale, who stares at his hands. "Why now?"

"What?"

"Why do you want to talk about this now?" Crowley says. "We had 6000 years to talk about it."

"Yes, 6000 years that I spent believing in everything heaven told me," Aziraphale says. His hands are in his lap now, shaking just a little. "I believed what they said. I believed that I was a bad angel. I believed that everything heaven did - everything Gabriel and his contingent did was justified. And now - after everything - I keep... I keep doubting everything I thought I knew to be true."

" _Angel_ ," Crowley says softly, slinking up from his spot in the grass to join Aziraphale on the picnic blanket, swiftly taking his hands and threading their fingers together. "You don't have to feel guilty for anything."

"I _do_ ," Aziraphale says, his voice quivering a little. "I picked them over you, every time. You were right. We _were_ on our own side. I knew that I liked you best. I knew that if there was anyone I wanted to be beside, it was _you_. And yet, I kept picking them. I kept telling myself - telling you - that we were enemies. And all the while, just felt so guilty about wanting to be around you all the time. Like I was doing something wrong. But out of everyone— he took a deep breath in— "you were the one that stuck by me. You were the one that rescued me all those times. You were the one that was by my side."

“I always would have been. That would never have – _never could have_ – changed.”

“That’s my point,” Aziraphale says, his face so thoroughly upset that Crowley wants to lean forward and kiss the sadness away. “You were unwavering in your support, in your kindness—”

Crowley scoffs.

“—you _were,_ darling. I’m afraid the space in that heart of yours is one of your worst kept secrets.” 

The back of Crowley’s neck grows hot, and he yearns for his glasses that he’d left on the kitchen table, just so that the angel wouldn’t be able to stare into his eyes as intently as he is. Instead, he clings onto Aziraphale’s hand as if it’s his lifeline. 

“And yet still,” Aziraphale continues, “I believed them over you. I believed in some way that you must have done something to deserve falling. I never stopped to question that it might have been unjust; I just blindly accepted that it was God’s will.”

“None of that was your fault.” Crowley surges forward, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale, his hand tracing the angel’s cheek. “They manipulated you, angel, drove things into your mind that weren’t true. It’s hard to see what’s in front of you when you’ve only been told one truth your entire life.”

“I made you wait so long. I made you wait _six thousand years_ ,” Aziraphale whispers. 

“I would have waited another six thousand years. And another six thousand years after that,” Crowley says, “I would have waited an eternity for you, Aziraphale.”

“I put you through so much pain.” Aziraphale’s voice shakes. “All that time. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway.”

“It was worth it,” Crowley says, unlatching from Aziraphale’s hand to take Aziraphale’s face in both of his. “ _It was worth it.”_

“I need you to tell me, Crowley, my love. Tell me what it was like to fall.” 

Crowley’s eyes flit away from Aziraphale. His gaze is too piercing, like staring into the sun. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand and squeezes it. “Don’t try to spare my feelings, Crowley. Tell me the truth. Please, I need to know.”

Crowley’s tongue passes his over his lips. He wonders for a moment if there’s an excuse he can make, something he can say that will get him out of this, but Aziraphale’s looking at him with the most pleading eyes, soft hands holding tight onto his imploring him to speak. He’s never been able to deny his angel anything.

When he speaks, he finds his voice has gone hoarse. “It was like everything had been taken from me,” Crowley admits heavily. He swallows, takes a breath, begins to speak again, “like everything good feeling, every spark of joy, the warmth of Her love: it was like it had all been wrenched away.”

Aziraphale’s face creases up something awful, and Crowley hurriedly says, “we don’t have to talk about this, angel. None of it matters anymore, not as long as we’re together now.”

“No.” Aziraphale’s head bows, as if paying penance. “I need to know. Everything.”

Crowley hesitates, but continues to talk. “I felt so empty. So – so empty. It wasn’t just joy, and hope, and love, it was _everything._ I’d become a hollow shell. Everything burned—” he shudders, the memory passing over him— “my back especially. And I tried—tried to reach for my wings, to stretch them out, but they’d gone, burned straight off. Scars are still there, I think.”

“What?” Aziraphale’s face pales.

“It’s a hard place to see the mirror. But I’m pretty sure they’re still there.”

“You’re scarred?”

“All demons are in some way or another,” Crowley says, rubbing his snake tattoo.

“Show me.”

“Angel, I—”

“Show me, please,” Aziraphale says. “If, if that’s okay with you, that is. I want to see.”

“It’s not... pretty,” Crowley hedges.

“I don’t care. I need to know what they did to you.”

* * *

They move into the shade of the cottage, Aziraphale behind Crowley as they make their way up the stairs to their bedroom.

The bedroom isn’t often used by Aziraphale in the traditional way. He’s never really felt the need to sleep, not in the way that Crowley does. Mostly, he sits up at night and reads while Crowley curls up next to him, falling asleep to Aziraphale’s affectionate fingers in his hair.

Crowley is infinitely tactile. He reaches out for Aziraphale in his sleep subconsciously, seeking out touch in every moment. Once he’d had the permission – and by God, after Armageddon, Aziraphale had given permission and more so – Crowley never seemed to tire of Aziraphale’s touch.

He’d never expected the demon - all sharp angles and sarcastic words – to be so snuggly.

And now, hearing him talk about the fall with words like _joyless_ and _hollow,_ Aziraphale begins to understand why.

They enter the bedroom, dark inside compared to the bright outdoors, Crowley stopping in the middle of the room.

“This wasn’t your fault. What happened to me wasn’t your fault. We didn’t even know each other then,” he says. “You don’t have to punish yourself like this.”

Aziraphale presses his lips together. “Show me.”

Crowley kneels on the bed. Aziraphale settles onto the bed behind him, waiting in silence before Crowley slowly slips his shirt off.

Aziraphale has to fight not to let out a cry.

From the end of Crowley’s neck to the small of his back are two long red gashes, bright and deep, as if they’d been inflicted on him in the past twenty-four hours, instead of sixth thousand years ago.

_How had he not noticed?_

Aziraphale’s eyes sting as they begin to water. “After all this time, how has it not healed?” he says, his voice scarce.

“It’s not supposed to,” Crowley says quietly. “It’s supposed to be a reminder; of everything that you lost. Something that’ll last for eternity to remind you what you used to be, what you are not now.”

“Can I—” Aziraphale asks, the question stuck in his mouth as his finger touches Crowley’s back, featherlight.

Crowley nods, leaning back into Aziraphale’s touch as he traces the scars gently with his hands. He lets out a hiss as Aziraphale’s fingers brush the length of the burns

“I’m hurting you.” Aziraphale retracts his hands.

Crowley shakes his head. “Don’t stop.”

Aziraphale hovers for a moment but resumes tracing Crowley’s back.

“They did this to you,” Aziraphale says. “My side did this to you.”

“Not your side anymore,” Crowley mumbles. 

“But they were, for so long,” Aziraphale says, horrified. “They did this to you, and up until Adam saved the world, I would have said it was justified.”

His hand rests on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley reaches up to cover it with his.

“Not your fault what they made you believe,” he says, head bent, eyes closed. “Only matters what you believe now.”

Aziraphale arms wrap around Crowley’s torso, holding him flush against him, his face pressed into the back of Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley’s hands immediately cover Aziraphale’s, and for a moment, they are both silent, as an angel squeezes a demon is an embrace that is six thousand years overdue.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale says, “I’m so sorry.” 

“It wasn’t you. I never blamed you.”

Aziraphale tightens his hold and Crowley bends his head back so that they’re touching.

They’ve been intimate before, of course, but this feels intimate in an altogether different way. It’s an embrace that says, _I’m sorry,_ and _I forgive you,_ but mostly just says, _I love you, I love you, I love you, I promise I’ll never let go again._

“Crowley, my darling, I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am for making you wait for so long. Not even eternity would be enough time to pay back the debt I owe you.”

“Don’t owe me anything,” Crowley grunts. “Never could.”

“Still,” Aziraphale says, “I have six thousand years of time to make up. Six thousand years’ worth of time I should have spent with you.”

Heaven had taken joy from Crowley, but Aziraphale would spend every day from today to the end of time giving it back.

“You’re my side now,” Aziraphale vows, “I should have made that choice long ago, but I’m making it now. _You’re my side._ And if I have to spend the rest of eternity making up for the entire time that my former side made you believe that you were undeserving of love, then I will do it.

He kisses the back of Crowley’s neck, arms holding fast around his waist. “I love you, Crowley, I hope you know that,” he says, lips tracing Crowley’s shoulders. “I love you with all of my heart and even more after that. I love you with everything that I’ve got, and I’ll keep on loving you until the sun burns out and there’s nothing left but stardust.”

Crowley leans back into Aziraphale’s touch, fingers holding tight onto Aziraphale’s arms, chest heaving as he lets out a sob.

* * *

Crowley weeps gently as Aziraphale’s lips brush down his scars, chest caving in. Aziraphale’s touch is both agony and ecstasy. To finally have something he had yearned for so long is a sweet pain that burns like a fire in him, a pain that was the sweetest release, a pain that you couldn’t pay him to give up.

Aziraphale kisses him with a reverence that makes Crowley feel like he’s collapsing. He holds him with a strength that makes him feel more solid than anything.

“I love you, my dear,” Aziraphale whispers between kisses, mouth brushing warm against Crowley’s spine.

They are words Crowley never expected to hear from Aziraphale’s lips, not to directed at him, anyway. They are words that Crowley would die for.

Aziraphale kisses his scars amidst promises and apologies, and Crowley wants to make vows and promises too, wants to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for, wants to say, _I love you, I love you, I’ve loved you since Eden, I love you too,_ but instead, all he can do is let himself be held, tears tracking down his cheeks.

And then Aziraphale’s wings burst into the physical world, wrapping around Crowley like a shroud, and Crowley loses himself in Aziraphale’s arms, for the first time in his life feeling protected, safe, warm, and so very loved.

So this time, Crowley lets himself fall. He lets himself fall back against the bed, lets himself fall into Aziraphale’s arms, lets himself fall in love, completely, fully and without resistance.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [bee-elzebub](https://bee-ezlebub.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [@untakenbeepun](https://twitter.com/untakenbeepun)


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